Wedding Favors
by karly05
Summary: Yes, it's Ferbnessa Wedding Stuff, you have been warned. I wanted to do some short vignettes to cover some of the planning ideas I've had in mind for a while. Rated T, because you never know what might happen with these two.
1. Wedding Favors 1: Certifiable

**A/N – Yeah, it's Ferbnessa Wedding Stuff, you have been warned. I'm trying to do some short vignettes to present some bits of the planning phase I've had in mind for a while.**

**Rated T, because you never know what could happen when you put these two together. **

**The first one takes place the morning after "Midnight in Ackerton."**

Wedding Favors 1: Certifiable

Ferb Fletcher pushed the mower over the last few square feet of uncut grass outside the bungalow. _A good morning's work_, he congratulated himself, surveying the neat lawn. He didn't have to do this the old-fashioned way – he could have thrown together a Mow-Bot, or engineered a device that would shear the grass with a sonic pulse and vaporize the clippings – but he enjoyed the exercise. Nothing like a bit of fresh air and sunshine to make a man feel one with the earth. Now finished, he returned the mower to the garage, cleaned it up and parked it. Grabbing a towel, he vigorously rubbed his head, making the green hair stand in all directions, then wiped his face and hands and headed inside for a shower.

As he walked through the back door and entered the kitchen, Ferb pulled the shirt off over his head and slung it around his neck. He was getting a glass of water when the dulcet tones of his lady love wafted from the living room.

"Ferb? Come here."

She did not sound happy, he noted. And something was _clicking_. Emerging from the kitchen, he found Vanessa sitting sideways on the couch, fingers pecking away at the keyboard of her laptop as she bit her lip and knit her brow. She let out an exasperated grunt at the computer before she looked up at him. Her indigo eyes went a little dreamy and her expression relaxed for a moment as she gave him that_ Look_ – the one he was fairly certain resembled the Look he often felt himself giving her. Ferb had to admit, he enjoyed being on the receiving end of it, and he smiled slightly. Vanessa came out of the reverie with a sigh that turned gloomy and waved a hand at the laptop.

"Paris is going to be a lot harder than I thought," she grumbled.

Last night, she had put forward the idea of marrying him in the City of Love. Ferb had suspected at once that the plan was impractical – but impracticality had never stood in his way before, and Vanessa had been very persuasive… Now he sat down facing her, at the opposite end of the couch, and said, "What's the problem?"

"Well, for a start," she scanned the computer screen, "we can't get married at the top of the Eiffel Tower."

"Piffle," said Ferb, guessing rightly that the word would nudge that _You're so British_ chuckle out of her. "A couple of tourists, exchanging a few words – what are they going to do, call a _gendarme_?"

"Even if we get away with that, we can't get _legally _married in Paris. Not without jumping through a lot of hoops." She scrolled up the page she was reading. "You have to do a civil wedding, like a courthouse wedding, before you can do any other kind of ceremony. And before we can do a civil wedding, at least one of us has to live there for forty days, in the area where we're getting married. Ten days for the marriage application. Utility bills to prove residency…" she skimmed, "Passports… Affidavit of Law from a lawyer licensed to practice in France and here… Certificate of Celibacy…"

"Bloody hell!" The exclamation burst without warning from his lips. That ship had sailed long ago, and Ferb had no intention of dragging it back into dry dock now.

Vanessa had been startled by his reaction, but now she snickered a bit before she said, "Calm down, it doesn't mean what you think it means. It's just to prove that you're not already married to someone else."

"Oh." Feeling a bit silly about his outburst, Ferb dryly remarked, "You mean like the madwoman I keep locked in the attic?"

"Yeah," Vanessa smirked, "like that. Just don't let her set the house on fire."

It was so nice to have a fiancee who knew a _Jane Eyre_ reference when she heard one.

Vanessa had returned her attention to the computer and resumed her list of hurdles. "Medical certificate… blood test…"

Ferb's eyes went wide and he suppressed a shudder at this. Vanessa didn't even look up as she said, "Yeah, I knew you'd like that part."

He loved her, he loved her with all his heart, he wanted nothing more in the world than to marry this magnificent woman, but honestly, he had never even stopped to think about needing a blood test… "What if we get married here?" he blurted.

Now Vanessa's head snapped up and she looked at him with a hurt frown. "You are not calling this off over a stupid needle." It was a statement, not a question.

"No one's calling anything off," Ferb protested, stomach still in knots at the mere prospect of having a vein pierced. "We can still go to Paris, we can still call that the wedding, but you're right, we'll never be able to do all that civil marriage business there. We'd might as well pop down to the courthouse here and take care of the legalities, then we can have whatever sort of ceremony we like in Paris."

"You know you may still have to get a blood test here," Vanessa warned.

"Look it up." He pointed her attention back to the computer.

"Ferb," she muttered, shaking her head in that _I love you but you're driving me crazy_ way. It was funny how she could still make him feel ten years old at times. She opened a new window on the laptop screen and typed and clicked until she found what she was looking for. After an interminable amount of silent skimming and scrolling, she finally said, "All right, you're safe, no one's going to stick you with a needle."

"Thank you." His voice was dry and tight. It was absurd, and he really was going to have to do something about it someday, but not right now.

THE END

**A/N – The whole point of this was the "certificate of celibacy" gag – there really is such a thing, as I found when I started reading online about destination weddings in Paris. BroadwayFanGirl91 originated Ferb's needle-phobia, and I've had way too much fun abusing him with it.**


	2. Wedding Favors 2: Celebratory

**A/N – I didn't want the Paris Wedding to be officiated by a complete stranger (otherwise known as an OC), but it took me a while to strike upon an appropriate canon character for the job. This instantly gave me Vanessa's reaction, a tip of my hat to another of my favorite authors.**

**EVERYONE, I am delighted to say, belongs to Dan and Swampy. **

Wedding Favors 2: Celebratory

Ferb Fletcher regarded the computer screen with a smile of exhausted relief. The latest Wedding Crisis had just been averted – or at least so he hoped – and he owed it all to one person.

"Gran, you're brilliant. I love you."

The dear, elderly lady smiled back at him from far across the Atlantic and said, "I love you, too, sweetheart. You'll let me know how it works out?"

He nodded, then kissed his fingertips and held them out toward the web cam. Gran did the same for him and with a flurry of farewells, they ended the video chat. Ferb sat back in his chair, still mulling over the good fortune, or divine intervention, or whatever you wanted to call it that had prompted his grandmother's call. He and Vanessa were within four months of their Matrimonial Raid on the Eiffel Tower and still without an officiant for the ceremony. Oh, they could have gone through any of several agencies to find a Celebrant for hire, but Ferb had the mad notion that he'd rather say his vows in front of someone who was not a complete stranger. Vanessa's father had volunteered to do some online ordination thing if he could cadge the money from her mother, but Vanessa had wisely pointed out that he couldn't walk his daughter down the aisle _and_ do the "who gives this woman?" bit, and walking his daughter had won hands down. Ferb was relieved to have dodged that bullet. He had managed over time to forge a cordial relationship with Doctor Doofenshmirtz, but he still didn't quite trust the man not to have a change of heart and sabotage the efforts of this green-haired hoodlum to carry off his Baby Girl. Ferb and Vanessa had even discussed the fact that, since the Paris wedding was merely symbolic, they didn't actually need someone legally qualified to marry them. This opened up the field, but still no satisfactory choice presented itself. Well, one did, but the traditional ceremony didn't translate well into platypus chatter. And besides, the merest whisper that the Flynn-Fletcher Family Pet and Agent P of the O.W.C.A. were one and the same was still something strictly forbidden.

He had dinner ready when Vanessa came home from work that evening, and told her about his conversation with Gran and the person she had recommended.

"I haven't seen him since I was twelve or thirteen," Ferb admitted. "But Phineas and I used to cross paths with him pretty regularly on our visits to Gran and Grandpa. He was a cheeky fellow," Ferb chuckled. "But always a good sport. Gran told him what we're up to, and she says he's game to help out."

"Yeah, that's great, Ferb," said Vanessa, sounding skeptical. "But what does he know about weddings?"

"That's the brilliant part. It seems that he's a licensed Celebrant. No legal standing, of course. We'll still have to do the courthouse wedding here. But he started at Oxford as a divinity student before he decided that the life of a Humble Village Parson wasn't really his calling. His parents were already renting out the castle for weddings and things, so he took a professional course and started officiating."

Vanessa still looked unconvinced as she voiced her reservations. "We're not getting married in a castle."

"Oh, no, of course not," Ferb assured her. "It's Paris or Bust. And if you don't like him, say the word and we'll keep looking. But we should at least talk to him."

The next day, after exchanging a few emails, a face-to-face was scheduled and at the appointed time, Ferb and Vanessa settled on the sofa with the laptop in front of them and logged into the video chat. Ferb wondered if he would recognize the chap at the other end, but when the Englishman's face flickered onto the screen, there was no mistaking his fine features, fair hair and clear blue eyes. He was now a young man of twenty-eight, but Charles Pipping the Fourth really hadn't changed all that much since they had staged the Medieval Tournament at his castle when Ferb was ten.

This impression was apparently mutual. "I say, Ferb, old bean, why, you haven't changed a bit. What ho," he acknowledged Vanessa with a smile. "Your lady fair, I presume?"

"Miss Vanessa Doofenshmirtz," Ferb presented her proudly.

"Delighted," said Charles, regarding her with respectful admiration. "However did this green-headed blighter win the heart of such a pippin?"

"Tenacity," the pippin replied, looping her arm through the blighter's and taking his hand. "And a lot of patience."

"I'm a lucky fellow," Ferb acknowledged with an adoring glance at his fiancee.

"And now you're ready to march down the aisle," Mr. Pipping beamed at them. "Jolly good. Dear old Mrs. F says you're tying the knot in Paris, of all places. _Quelle romantique_, as they say. Have you a venue lined up?"

It was Vanessa who answered, and Ferb felt the stiffening of her backbone that always accompanied the declaration of their intentions. "We're getting married at the top of the Eiffel Tower."

Charles appeared surprised by this news, and his expression became one of cautious concern. "I say, is that cricket?"

"We're working on that," Ferb assured him.

"No doubt, old chap, no doubt." The fair-haired fellow forced a game smile clearly meant to soothe them. "But, I say, what? Bit of a sticky wicket if some Pooh-Bah calls a halt to the thing halfway through. _Gendarmes_ tossing you in the chokey, dashed inconvenient, what?"

Ferb felt Vanessa press her lips against his shoulder, not kissing him so much as stifling the exasperated words he was certain she was struggling to contain. He sought to defuse the argument before it started. "Honestly, Charles, it will be all right. We know people." More accurately, he knew a supremely imaginative red-headed brother who didn't know the meaning of _impossible_, a platypus with ties to the global spy community, and an over-protective father with too many _inators_ for anyone's good. Ferb was confident that between the lot of them they would figure out something.

Pipping appeared persuaded by his words and chuckled lightly as he declared, "By Jove, old bean, if anyone can manage it, you can. Stiff upper lip, what? I say, Ferb, old egg." He grew solemn again as he advised, "I'd be delighted to do the honors, of course, but you do realize that the I Dos won't be legally binding, so to speak. Strictly celebratory, you understand. You'll still have to bung round to the registrar or what have you."

"Oh, yes," said Ferb, "we've got that covered." He was surprised to feel his intended still rooting against his arm. He could have sworn she was chewing on his shirt sleeve.

Whatever Vanessa was doing, Charles had noticed it, as well. "I say, dear girl," the man addressed her, "everything all right? You don't seem quite tickety-boo."

Ferb felt a splutter as Vanessa dug her nails into his palm and choked out the word, "Fine." Then all at once she clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted from the couch. Ferb watched her dash for the bedroom and slam the door, and glanced sheepishly at Charles. "I'd better…" he pointed in the general direction of Vanessa's exit.

"Right-ho," Charles agreed, looking a bit uncomfortable, himself. "Let me know…"

Ferb nodded. "I'll be in touch."

The other man gave a nod of his own and signed off with a, "Pip-pip, old chap."

Closing the chat, Ferb ventured toward the bedroom. As he drew near, he realized why Vanessa had removed herself in such haste. One closed door and probably at least two pillows were not enough to completely cover the sound, and it was with a gentle hand that he turned the knob.

"Ghee-hee-hee-hee-hee-Ghaa-ha-ha-ha-ha…" The Doofenshmirtz Cackle escaped from the muffling pillows as Vanessa raised her head and looked helplessly at him. "Oh, Ferb…" she laughed and sobbed, pushing herself upright and reaching out to him in appeal. "Baaa-ha-ha-he's not – still – ?" she flailed a finger toward the living room.

"He's gone," Ferb assured her, sitting on the bed and drawing her into his arms, where he rubbed her back and let her expel the rest of her mirth against his shirt front.

"Oh, Ferb," she said again, when she was down to the last exhausted giggles. Her flushed cheeks dimpled by the smile she couldn't break free of, Vanessa gasped out, "He's like something out of Wodehouse! I kept wanting to call him Bingo or Pongo or something…" An aftershock of amusement scrambled through her and shook out a few more chuckles.

"It's all right, love," he murmured comfortingly. "We don't have to use him."

"Oh, no," she protested, raising her head to meet Ferb's eyes. "He's sweet, I like him. He's a 'good egg,'" she grinned, with a soft final chortle. "But if he gets up there and says, 'I say, old bean, do you take this spiffing bird to be your bally ball and chain?'" she uttered this with a passing imitation of the Pipping accent before resuming her own voice, "I can't promise to keep a straight face."

THE END

**A/N – P. G. Wodehouse was a British author of humorous stories, written primarily in the 1920s and '30s. He was the creator of Bertie Wooster and his unflappable manservant, Jeeves, and he really did have characters called Bingo and Pongo. He's an old favorite of mine, and Charles Pipping the Fourth would fit right into his world. Oh, and I trust we all remember Charles from the early P&F episode "A Hard Day's Knight."**


End file.
